Page 23 of The Billionaire's Demand

Her face tightened. No, she was not.

I’m here by my own choice—because I choose to be here.

And whatever the tangled and tormenting reasons for doing what she had done—coming here to Paris with Leandros, coming into his bedroom now—they were her reasons.

She pressed her lips together a moment, then spoke again. Firmer now, more resolute, though the blood was still thudding in her ears.

‘You said you wanted the honeymoon I denied you. So now I...’ she took a breath, knowing it was ragged, knowing her heart was still beating audibly in her chest ‘...I give it to you.’

It was all she could say. She wanted to say so much—but that was impossible. All she could do was take another step forward, and then another, as if drawn towards him. At the foot of the bed she stopped. She was so close...so very close. She felt her heart rate quicken...emotion quicken. But which emotion? She didn’t know—there were too many inside her...

Something was wrong. His expression had changed and she could see the planes of his cheekbones, taut beneath the skin. A sudden shaft of dismay struck her.

‘Ah, I see—the sacrificial maiden.’

His words dropped into the silence between them, into the yawning gulf between them.

He shifted position suddenly, flexing his sinewed shoulders. The metallic glint in his eye was steel. And there was steel in his voice as he spoke.

‘Well, as it happens, Eliana, I don’t require a sacrificial maiden—not that you qualify as a maiden any longer. I don’t want a sacrifice at all—and least of all...’ the steel was a blade now ‘...do I want one who thinks she can assuage her wrongdoing by making such a virtuous sacrifice...’

She cried out with protest in her voice at what he was saying. ‘No! It isn’t like that—’

He didn’t let her say more. His voice was twisted, sarcasm knifing in it. ‘Do not think,’ he said, and each word was a twist of his knife, ‘that you can make me feel bad about bringing you here—that you can present yourself as some kind of victim, required to lay down her beautiful body for my vengeful lust!’

His words were stripping her, but he was going on, leaning forward suddenly.

‘You don’t get to play that convenient role. Because, my sweet, faithless Eliana, when you do join me in my bed, believe me—oh, believe me!—you will be as eager for me as you so fondly think I am for you. Honeymoons—even mockeries of honeymoons, like this one—are mutual. Don’t comfort yourself by thinking otherwise!’

The steel in his eyes glinted in the lamplight as he leant back against his pillows, deliberately picked up his magazine. He cast one more look at her, not steely this time, but scathing.

‘Get back to bed—your own bed. We’ve a full day ahead tomorrow.’

She was dismissed. It was as blunt, as brutal as that. Colour flared in her cheeks. Humiliation and more than that—worse than that.

With what self-control she could summon, she turned, walked back to the door. Blood was surging in her, flaring in her heated cheeks. In her room, she flung herself back into bed, felt emotions surging along with the blood in her distended veins.

Was he right? Was that why she had gone to him as she had? Just to assuage her own guilt at what she had done to him six years ago? Making a sacrifice of herself? Atoning for the wrong she’d done him?

Is that the only reason I went to him? Truly the only reason?

Easier to think so. Or was she deceiving herself? Suppressing a truth she dared not face...emotions she dared not arouse...?

As she huddled into the bedclothes, turned out her bedside light, she could still see in her mind’s eye Leandros in his bed, torso bared, looking at her. And she felt her emotions writhe and twist like snakes with poisoned fangs.

CHAPTER SIX

‘OK, TAKE YOUR PICK—plenty to choose from.’

Leandros was speaking, sitting next to her, as he had on the drive from the airport yesterday, in the chauffeured car now cruising through the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, with luxury fashion houses all around.

‘I... I don’t mind,’ Eliana answered. She glanced briefly at him. ‘You’re paying—you choose.’

She was feeling even more awkward in his company this morning after last night. She had slept fitfully, her emotions more tangled than ever, waking only when the house phone by her bed rang and she groggily answered it to hear Leandros’s brisk voice telling her he was off to his client appointment, and would be back after lunch to take her shopping. The butler would serve her breakfast whenever she was ready.

She’d been relieved not to see him, and determined, if nothing else, to enjoy the luxury of her surroundings after so many grim months of poverty and deprivation. She’d decided she would deal with being with Leandros again when she had to—and till then she’d make the most of a filling and leisurely breakfast in bed, then a lengthy, pampering bath.

Then, dressed in the same outdated frock she’d worn the previous evening, since her choice was very limited, she’d gone downstairs to explore the hotel, making her way out into the rear garden. The day was pleasantly warm, sunshine shafting across the small but elegantly laid-out space, and she’d found a quiet bench and read some more of Persuasion.

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